


this sort of life/among mad people

by wheredwellthe_brave_atheart



Series: never the same way twice [1]
Category: Chronicles of Narnia (Movies), Chronicles of Narnia - All Media Types, Chronicles of Narnia - C. S. Lewis
Genre: American Civil War AU, F/M, Outlaws AU, Wild West AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-05
Updated: 2016-01-05
Packaged: 2018-05-12 01:26:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,207
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5648707
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wheredwellthe_brave_atheart/pseuds/wheredwellthe_brave_atheart
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>""Ready?" he asks, twirling the pistol around his finger and holstering it with the others.<br/>She stands, a hand to her belt just to make sure everything is in place.<br/>"Ready," she nods.<br/>They climb up onto their horses and kick off, making way for Galveston.<br/>Susan keeps her eyes ahead."</p>
            </blockquote>





	this sort of life/among mad people

**Author's Note:**

> This is a work of fan fiction using characters from the Chronicles of Narnia world, created by C.S. Lewis. I do not claim ownership over the world or any characters used. I am not profiting in any way from this work, it is my own invention and for entertainment only, and it is not purported to be a part of C.S. Lewis's official story line.
> 
> So, this piece took me completely by surprise - this series is full of AUs for Susan and Edmund, but this thing took on a life of its own over the last few days. For the record, I am not American, and nor did I live in the south during the American Civil War, but I did try to make everything as historically accurate as possible (the amount of tabs I have open about the geography, politics, culture, and weaponry of the era goes to show how unprepared I was for the fun little Wild West AU to take over my life). Side note: Alice in Wonderland wasn't actually published until 1865, and here I suggest Lucy reads it at least in 1860, but I hope you can forgive me :)
> 
> Title from Lewis Carroll's 'Alice's Adventures in Wonderland'.

**Galveston, Texas, 1864**

It ended with a cough.

Hers, blood spraying the polished wood floor of the Galveston house, spotting the smooth tan surface like sugar sprinkling over pancakes. A very innocent image, but Susan can't help herself. 

Their guns lie dusty and smoking at the barrels, the ring of shots still hovering in the humid air. The broken lamp is still swinging above, squeaking on its chain.

Susan feels very tired. 

...

**Kansas Territory, 1860**

It started with a cough. 

It started when Lucy fell ill, the winter after their mother died, an illness which no amount of rest and scant medicine and compresses wielded in Susan's shaking hands could diminish. 

The worst part was the thought that Lucy might've been able to cure it herself, had someone else been suffering. Little Lucy Pevensie, all of fifteen and yet already half as knowledgeable as old Doctor Kirke, always asking midwife Macready questions when she passed her on the Main Street. Lucy, their baby sister, who cried when their father left for the cattle drive one spring, who baked peach pies with Mother every summer. Lucy with her firecracker smiles even as consumption riddled her lungs and chained her to her bed. 

Even then, they knew something else was coming. Peter was anxious, coming home from Sheriff Aslan's station each night only to pace the long hallway outside Lucy's bedroom, a candle in hand which would gutter every time he swung around too rapidly, restless as a stallion in the stable. Edmund, quieter, every bit as scared but determined to keep Lucy in good cheer, bringing apples or bits of twine or a broken horseshoe from his days at the Scrubb's ranch to place on her bedside table. Even Lucy herself felt a change in the air separate from her feverish chill, a sense that at any moment, someone was about to come riding into town from over the horizon. 

When looking back on those last desperate weeks at home, Susan remembers trying endlessly to ease their sister's sickness. Nights were spent by her sister's side, and her days in the schoolhouse were long, as she was terrified that Lucy would suffer while she wrote on the chalkboard with twitching fingers, never letting her students see how much she worried. 

It started with a cough. 

On the night the bandits came, Doctor Kirke made his last visit to their small townhouse, his shoes squeaking up the wooden staircase. Susan watched the thin shadows his tall frame cast along the wall, and prayed to God he had some new trick in his black bag that would bring colour back to Lucy's sunken cheeks, that would let all of them sleep for the first time in weeks.  

Her brothers were both still at work, so Susan made some weak coffee and warmed the last of their stew for supper. She ate two bites before it turned to ash in her mouth, and she shoved the bowl away, spoon clattering across the table. 

Lucy's hacking coughs seemed to shake the walls, echoing through the house like coyote cries ringing through town at night. 

She jumped as the front door creaked open, but it was Edmund, his worn leather boots stomping dust through the house. 

"Mighty chilly out there tonight," he said by way of greeting, whistling low. "Strange, I reckon. Even for this time of year." 

Susan only nodded, and he must've noticed the look of tension on her face. He stepped closer, ambling through the dark of the hall to the kitchen. "Su?" he asked, taking off his hat with careful hands. 

She realized just then what was wrong. 

"She's stopped coughing," she whispered, and there was a single heartbeat of silence before they reacted as one, eyes leaping to the ceiling and then bolting for the stairs, fear shivering between them. 

...

The thing about being an outlaw is that it gets increasingly difficult to find coffee.

"Goddamnit," Edmund swears, staring in dismay at the few remaining coffee grinds in his bag. It's hot tonight, the whine of cicadas running down Susan's spine. The air is dry and brittle, and it smells like hunger and forgotten places. 

Edmund sighs and leans back, gazing up at the starry sky. The lights of the city shine in the distance, like a constellation plucked from the heavens and placed in the desert. 

"The nights always creeps up on us," she reminds him, for he looks hardly eager to retire to the tent, and Edmund shrugs.

"We should get a move on tomorrow," he says. "We've almost exhausted the supplies around here. We can't steal anything more before we're really noticed, and we won't have another chance like this." 

"Alright," Susan agrees. She gets up from the birch log, her meager supper finished, and passes behind him, placing a hand on his shoulder. His skin is cooler than the heat of Galveston, and she drops a kiss to the crown of his head before climbing in the tent.

...

When Lucy's coughs stopped and the house was bursting with silence, Edmund and Susan climbed the stairs in a single breath. Just as they reached the landing, Dr. Kirke stepped out of Lucy's room and moved to shut the door. He caught sight of them and she and Edmund stopped cold, paralyzed. 

Doctor Kirke swallowed hard, and suddenly Susan saw the wetness in his eyes, the slight downturn of his mouth.

He tried to block the door. "I'm sorry, my dears-"

"No!" Susan cried, lunging for the bedroom.

The doctor stepped aside, and she and Edmund barreled into the room, but the bed was still and the sheets were pulled over their sister's face. 

Susan reeled back as if struck, the sight hitting her like a kick to the chest from a rearing horse. "No, no, Lucy!" she sobbed, staggering back and colliding with Edmund, knees weak. 

And that was when the screaming began. 

The sounds of gunfire erupted outside, and through their grief, they could hear horses braying, glass shattering, people shouting in the streets. 

Doctor Kirke ran back into the room, glasses askew and beard quivering. "Get down!" he shouted, motioning for them to move away from the open window. "For heaven's sake, douse that lamp-!"

That's when a stray bullet ricocheted through the window frame and struck the doctor through the shoulder, sending him crashing to the floor. 

Susan cried out in alarm, clapping her hands to her mouth as a great pool of dark blood seeped from Doctor Kirke's wound, staining the floor a grotesque shade of crimson. 

Edmund ripped a length off Lucy's cotton bedsheet jerkily, rushing forward to staunch the bleeding - it was different with horses; a wounded animal shrieked and foamed at the mouth, rolling the whites of its eyes as you tried to bind its injury, but the Doctor only moaned and clutched at his shoulder, blood crawling over his fingers.  

"Can't-" he gasped, breath coming in heavy pants. "No point, my boy- it's hit an artery-"

Edmund tried anyway, lashing the cotton in a tourniquet as Susan knelt and held the Doctor down, but the white sheet was soon bled through, and Kirke shook his head, scraping along the wooden floor desperately. 

"Go!" he cried hoarsely, tears leaking from his old eyes. "Run, both of you, get somewhere safe-!"

Susan protested - they couldn't leave him to die!, but Edmund knew there was nothing more to be done, nothing except to ensure their own survival, so he squeezed Kirke's hand tightly and pulled Susan up by the arm, heading for the door. 

She fought against him, gasping for the Doctor, his eyes wide and fearful on the floor; crying out for Lucy, dead and alone on the bed, and tears poured down her lovely face like summer rain, but the bedroom was now half a morgue and there was nothing left for them there. 

They raced back down the stairs, and Edmund grabbed his knife and shotgun from the hook on the wall. "Peter!" he shouted to her over the sounds of fighting outside their door. "Susan, Peter is out there somewhere, we can still help him!"

She nodded furiously, taking gulping breaths to calm her tears, and Edmund yanked open their rusty front door. 

The streets were in chaos - masked horsemen galloped down the rows of houses, past the milliner's and the general store, shattering windows and crumbling brick, firing bullets seemingly at random. Their horses were tall and wicked fast, each at least fifteen hands high. The bandits wielded weapons and canvas sacks already stuffed with their looted treasure which swung wildly in the confusion. Their neighbours were screaming, several bodies lay on the ground, though whether they were dead or merely knocked out Susan couldn't be sure. 

She and Edmund ran low along the cover of the houses, and Susan's lungs burned with gunpowder. 

...

Some days Susan wakes and forgets, for a moment, where she is. Sometimes if she keeps her eyes shut she can imagine she hears Peter's cheerful voice singing in the kitchen as he cooks a fry-up on his day off; that Lucy is re-reading _Alice's Adventures in Wonderland_ for the third time in the sun on the back porch; that she is still a schoolteacher who doesn't know how to shoot a gun, and that Edmund doesn't have a twitch in his fingers and such a haunted look in his eye. 

The absence of half her family feels like she's missing ribs - like she's been carved out, hollowed just slightly, and sewn back together with misshapen stitches. She aches for Peter and his infectious laugh, for the sound of his heavy Deputy's boots clunking through the front door. She aches for her sister and the strength of her heart, how she could cheer you in an instant with her good faith and her beloved stories of adventure. 

If Peter and Lucy were here, Susan thinks, they would be able to make the shadows under their sibling's skin go away.

But the dream fades as she feels the rocks under her back, and Edmund's arm swung over her, his breath warm under her ear. 

Their life is razor-sharp, like they're balancing on the tip of a knife point each minute. 

They tried, at first, before the fighting really began, to find a quiet place, but they couldn't settle, restless in the perpetual still of town life, where dust camouflages everything, be it sins or virtue. 

And once war broke out, that first spring they were on the road, any chance of another life was lost to them. Edmund couldn't enlist - they had no papers, no property, not a penny to their name, and they were on their way to becoming known criminals across Kansas Territory, much as they tried to avoid it. Pretty soon, their faces hung on wanted posters across the country. They weren't wanted by the North and they hated the slaves and the old money and the corruption in the South, so instead they skirt the edges of the war, tracking the carnage, the cost to their land, for three long years, now.

It was inevitable, really, that they should come to this. Hunters, the pair of them. Outlaws. 

This morning, Susan has maps in her head, routes into the city, into the house that's waiting for them. She scratches a fingernail in the dirt absently, until Edmund shifts beside her and stretches awake. 

He reaches for their dwindling supply of matches and sits up, striking it with practiced ease. 

"You wanna share?" he mumbles around the cigarette now dangling from his lip, his figure lit with the sun filtering through their tent. 

She shrugs. By the time he's done they'll both have the taste on their tongues, anyway.  

...

The air was choked with powder and smoke and the ever-present dust that settled over everything in town, all of it stirred up by the horse's charging hoofs and the mad scramble of townspeople. Susan held a hand over her mouth as they ran through the streets, eyes fixed on Edmund's back as he led them to the Sherriff's station, no doubt hoping to find Peter there. Susan felt that if she had any air to spare in her chest she would pray, sing hymns, cry out to God to spare their brother, but as it was she just kept running and hoped as hard as she could that Peter was just around the next corner. 

They raced to the edge of the townhouses, and had no choice but to venture into the street, swerving through the maze of bodies and sound. Susan tried to keep her brother in sight, but she stumbled and felt a hand grab her arm, forcing her to the ground. 

A masked rider loomed over her, and she screamed and kicked and clawed at his eyes, but she could feel the weight of him, the grip of his hands, his foul breath in her face-

The horseman fell away from her as blood splattered across Susan's face, hot and sticky. She scrambled back, sitting up, and saw that the bandit's head had been smashed in at the temple. 

Edmund held out his hand, the other clutching the bloody handle of his gun, and Susan grasped it and surged to her feet, pausing only to spit on her attacker's body. 

She hadn't much practice with spitting. But she managed. 

...

The cigarette is finished and there really isn't anything else to do except wait, so Susan draws lines in the dirt and they play hangman - "a bit of gallows humour", Edmund says, and she rolls her eyes. 

Edmund squints and tilts his head, as if trying to inspect the game from a different perspective. 

He scratches his jaw, stubble casting shadows on his face, and cocks and eyebrow. 

"S?" he ventures, sounding completely unsure. 

"Guess again," she teases, adding an arm to Edmund's doomed figure.  

If they were anyone else, this would be exceptionally morbid. 

As it is, they laugh together when she reveals the answer (Jill Pole, the shopkeeper's daughter who'd run the wilderness camps at Sunday school in town), and, for the moment, Susan feels content. It's such a rare occasion now, to see Edmund truly laugh, and she wishes she could bottle it, keep it under her pillow, protect it in warm hands at night. 

...

As the brawling continued in the streets, they'd made it through most of the crowds, and the Sherriff's station was finally in sight. Edmund increase the pace, and she was so relieved - here was Peter, here was safety, here was protection, so close she wanted to reach out and grasp it. 

They had almost made it up the steps, Edmund had one hand on the rail, when an errant bullet hit the gas lamp burning on the Station's porch and exploded, showering them in fragments of metal and glass and flame, sending Edmund careening off the landing over the rail, into the dirt. 

Susan dove for cover, hissing at the burn of gravel on her skin, and crawled around to her brother, but Edmund had hit his head and was unconscious, face scraped and smeared with dust. 

She dragged him under the arms, away from the heat of the flames now licking up the wood of the station, wincing at each jostle of his head. She cursed when they hit an uneven patch and he bounced up, his head catching her chin and causing her to bite her tongue. She tasted the coppery tang of blood in her mouth and ducked as more debris battered them, Edmund's heels catching in the dirt. 

The ground shook underneath her as the bandits seemed to rally and gathered together, moving as one to turn their horses westward, towards where Susan lay crouched in the shadows over Edmund, trampling anything in their path. The head of the pack rode a white mare, and the silver spurs on his boots dug harshly into the animal's side, so blood dripped down the snowy coat. The horses shrieked as they cantered by, the bandits whooping and hollering, cheering for their stolen goods and laughing at their own cruelty. 

Edmund jerked awake as they thundered past, and Susan pressed a hand over his mouth, afraid to be seen or heard. He thrashed underneath her, disoriented, but Susan wouldn't release him until he slumped back against her, understanding. 

The sounds of the bandits died as they raced out into the desert, and Susan's heartbeat pounded in her ears. 

"We have to go," she hissed at her brother, anxious. "We have to leave, we can't stay here now." 

"Peter-" he croaked, sitting upright. 

She shook her head. "Edmund, Peter is-" she stumbled, heart in her throat, then tried again. "He's probably dead, too, in the fire or in the fighting, and..." She took a deep breath, and closed her eyes. "And our house is full of dead bodies, and someone must have seen you kill that man." 

Her brother was no fool, and she knew he wouldn't be arguing anytime soon. He understood, just as she did, that they had little choice left. 

When he felt clear-headed enough to move, they stole two of the horses set free in the attack and as many supplies as they could salvage from the wreckage of town, piling food and matches and blankets into saddlebags. 

They didn't go back to the house. 

Instead, they rode off to the east, heads low in the cool air of the desert night. 

Susan tied her hair back and mourned. 

...

They are practical people, and they don't see much point kicking up a fuss when they don't know, yet, the outcome of tonight. 

Susan thinks for a moment of teaching younger students math, of explaining probability and likeliness of success. 

She wishes she remembered how to fix the game. 

Edmund pulls on his boots, his guns cleaned and loaded beside him. The sun will be sinking soon, after a day spent high and bright, the kind of day that makes Susan cast her eyes to the sky. 

He cocks his weapon, inspecting the weight. 

"Ready?" he asks, twirling the pistol around his finger and holstering it with the others. 

She stands, a hand to her belt just to make sure everything is in place. 

"Ready," she nods. 

They climb up onto their horses and kick off, making way for the city. 

Susan keeps her eyes ahead. 

...

After the first few months straggling around the countryside, trying to find a home in a town or city that didn't make them jittery and tense, they stayed up late into the hours of the morning and finally stopped. 

Edmund clenched his jaw and stared into the pitiful fire at the inn. "We've got no choice," he muttered, eyes fixed in the embers. "We really don't."

Susan swallowed hard, feeling the desire for vengeance burn in her chest. They've been ignoring it for weeks, convincing themselves they can forget. 

Lying to yourself only works for so long, before the real world comes knocking, and you have to accept it or decide to fight back. 

The bastards who burnt their town roamed free while they shuffled from town to town, sleeping in lonely barns  and stealing food wherever they could. It was time to start listening to the rumors that persisted about the gang of riders who pillaged the countryside, the whispers of their whereabouts and purpose plaguing Susan's dreams.  

Their room in the inn that night was freezing. Susan wrapped herself in Edmund's arms and fell into a fitful sleep, dreaming of a huge fire burning in the bush of the Arizonian desert. 

...

They left their valley between the rocks an hour before sunset, and Susan spares a moment's concentration to be grateful for her brother's talent with horses. His time as a ranch hand and stable master at the Scrubb's farm are a blessing for them now, when they no longer need light to navigate the crags or avoid dangerous animals on their route into the city. 

Susan remembers countless evenings spent watching Edmund brush the dust of the day's ride from their horses, his breath calm and eyes warm as he took care of his dark grey stallion and her dappled mare. 

She pats her horse's side fondly, suddenly aware that their journey together could be nearing its end, tonight. 

The sinking sun leaves a flash of white light off the metal on Susan's stirrups, and she remembers the snow-white coat of a bandit's horse, their silvery blonde hair under a dark hat, the streaks of blood off silver spurs. 

_The White Witch_ , the South called her, _Queen of Outlaws,_ whispering the name each time another town was destroyed, as more stories of corruption and violence and greed spread across the States like ice crawling over a pond in winter.  _Can't be caught, can't be stopped_ ,  _she_   _only kills a man after he begs on knees for mercy._

She glances at Edmund out of the corner of her eye, and remembers a night in Missouri with a wind that howled, when they'd met a woman stopped in the middle of the road on a white horse, a woman with eyes like cinders and dozens of men at her back. 

She looks at Edmund and remembers him on his knees, transfixed, gun slipping from slack fingers. 

But Edmund is at her side now, eyes glittering in the dark of sundown, hands steady on his reins, and it has to be enough. 

Their horses slip through the shadows, sneaking past an outer city border and into the buzz of Galveston at night.

...

Inevitably, there were idiots who underestimated them. 

Once, settled for the night along a lonely cattle trail outside Arizona Territory, their fire attracted a group of highwaymen, who saw their strong horses and tried to steal their animals and supplies. 

Edmund woke from a nightmare covered in cold sweat, gasping, so he climbed from their blankets and ventured outside for some air. 

The highwaymen had only just got their hands on the reins of their horses, and Edmund was taken by surprise. 

They took their chance and leapt on him, beating him black and blue, overwhelming him by sheer force until he lay in the dirt, and his ears were ringing, his vision was blurry-

Three clean shots cracked from behind, sending two men running to their own horses, riding for the hills, but the third was shot clean between the eyes, his body tumbling back into the dust. 

Edmund is the best rider south of Kansas, the best horsemen on the open road, and Susan happens to be the best shot.

Afterwards, Susan cleaned the blood from Edmund's face, scrubbing it gently, her fingers steady, and kissed him.

...

The house they're breaking into tonight is the great mansion in the city centre owned by Governor Bernardo Miraz, the scoundrel who now owns half of Galveston after his rise to riches and glory in the early years of the war. A Confederate supporter elected Governor through very dubious circumstances, Miraz was a ruthless, cunning man with far too much power for either Susan or Edmund's liking. 

To most, Miraz's past is shrouded in mystery - _a young boy who built his life by his own terms_ was a good enough explanation for a generous supporter of the Confederate Army. But Miraz had been there the night their hometown was attacked, for Bernardo Miraz was once Francisco Ortìz, thief and bandit, rumoured favourite of the White Witch and her gang of marauders. 

So they slip into the heart of the city, and when they reach Miraz's mansion, Edmund knocks out the guards so swiftly they’ve hardly got hands to their holsters. They ride through clumps of tall ash trees until they reach the large, imposing house, its windows dark, inhabitants sleeping—except for the sitting room, where Susan can see a lamp burning, and Miraz’s stony figure seated in an armchair, fingers steepled.

“Shit,” she curses, as they pull their horses and wait in the cover of the trees off the porch. “Ed-”

“I know,” he mouths, raising a finger to his lip swiftly.

She shakes her head. “We can’t lose this chance,” she whispers desperately. Miraz departs for Virginia in just a few days, and Susan won’t watch him scuttle away again. She pulls out her gun, and Edmund does the same.

They dismount, and charge up the patio, bursting through the back doors. Miraz leaps to his feet, turning to face them. “How _dare_ you-!” he cries, dropping his papers, but Susan darts forward, too quick and small to be caught in his wild lunge for her, and slams the butt of her pistol into the top of Miraz’s head, knocking him out cold for at least a few minutes. She snatches the stamped papers from his limp hand, and motions to her brother to hand her the rope for the Governor’s wrists, but when she turns, Edmund only has eyes for a figure previously unseen by Susan, sitting back in the shadows of the opposite armchair.

Susan trains her gun on the chair, boots crossing over each other as she steps in front of her brother and squints into the darkness of the room. “Who are you?” she demands, one finger on the trigger. “Show yourself! Hands up now, easy does it, there.”

A silvery laugh emits from the chair’s occupant, and Susan feels a cold sweat break out along her palms and the back of her neck. “Oh,” the voice sighs, and it’s like the whisper of a wind blowing over sand at night, “I had hoped you’d be just a bit more perceptive, now, honey.”

The figure leans forward, face catching the light of the oil lamp, and the most feared outlaw in all of the South reveals herself, pale eyes sharp and trained on Susan and Edmund.

“You-” Susan spits, bringing the other hand up to steady her gun. “You’re supposed to be-”

“In New Mexico?” Jadis, the White Witch, suggests with mirth in her cruel face. “Captured, in jail, abandoned by my men?” She smirks. “Dead?” She laughs, hands like pale spiders clutching the arms of her chair. “I like to encourage rumours. Keeps folks guessing. I find that guesswork does not often lead to victory, and I am _very_ interested in winning this war.”

Susan sneers, though her mouth is dry as a bone left in the sun. “The Union is rallying,” she says, eyes narrowing. “Confederate troops are falling. And you’re an outlaw!” she realizes, angry. “What stake do you have in the war?”

Jadis raises an eyebrow. “More than you know,” she says coolly.

Susan can feel Edmund shaking behind her as he squares his stance and moves to stand at her shoulder, gun drawn.

“Well, look who’s come out to play,” Jadis simpers, eyes following Edmund’s movements. “Oh, I have missed you, you know. It’s been such a long time since we last spoke.”

Susan snarls and advances another step.

“Uh uh,” Jadis tuts, lifting a finger. “I have my men stationed all around this house, you know.” With a click of her fingers, the room is flooded with men, guns ready, leering at Susan with yellow teeth. “And plenty more outside,” Jadis continues. “Watching, waiting. So be a good girl, and drop the gun, or I give the order, and they shoot.”

Susan hesitates, mind whirling, when Jadis erupts into a fit of coughing that makes Susan withdraw, just a step. The leader of the troop that sacked their town raises a handkerchief to her convulsing mouth, and it comes away stained with blood.

Susan feels a surge of victory in her veins, and feels Edmund’s shock beside her. “I’ve seen that before,” she says, a pain in her chest flaring at the thought of her sister. “You aren’t long for this world-”

Jadis surges to her feet, towering even in the large room, eyes flashing. “We’ll see,” she growls, pulling her own silver pistol. “At the very least, I can take you with me.”  
  


Edmund strikes with the speed of a loosed bullet, firing his pistol and drawing his knife in the same movement. Susan whirls around to start picking off the jeering bandits around them, as Jadis swerves to miss Edmund’s shot, firing her own weapon back at him. Susan’s cheek is grazed with a bullet, another lodging in her calf, and she ducks to the ground and rolls up again on one knee, firing with determined precision. She tries to wound rather than kill, but they have no such reservations and she is forced to take deadly aim several times over. Someone’s bullet hits the ornate lamp swinging above their heads, showering them all in crystal shards and splatters of hot oil.

Jadis screams, high and piercing, and Susan whips around to see Edmund, bleeding from the forehead but clutching his bloody knife triumphantly. Jadis’s right hand has been severed, her gun lying useless on the ground.

She screams again, terrible and full of fury, lunging for Edmund, but she is overcome with another attack of coughs and she stumbles, then falls, to the wood floor, her blood spraying across the tan surface like sugar sprinkled on pancakes.

Her body is still, and Edmund raises his gun, swinging around the room, but the sight of their leader fallen causes the few remaining men to abandon their posts, scurrying from the house, no doubt snatching some fine items of Miraz’s along the way.

The Governor, too, lies dead on the floor, trampled or shot in the fight, and Susan steps over him, limping, to Edmund.

...

**Kansas State, 1865**

Kansas is alive with the smell of spring and the joy of peace time, and Susan smiles at Edmund as their horses slow to a walk in the bright sun.

With Jadis dead, her web of spies and traitors, the countless criminals she’d placed under her thumb and then into positions of power all crumbled without her there to pull the strings. The war ended only a few weeks ago, a couple months after her death, and the country was bright with a new hope that Susan held close in her chest.

Their purpose gone, she and Edmund were left with another choice.

Maybe one day, they’ll go back, to walk through the town they once called home. Maybe one day she’ll have the strength to bear it, either way – to find the place barren and abandoned, or else thriving, Peter alive and well.

She sighs, imaging the joy of a reunion mixed with his utter confusion over his siblings, now outlaws, thieves, and killers.

For now, this is what Susan keeps close to her heart: Peter's fiddle, when he'd play it at night, feet stomping out a messy rhythm enthusiastically. Lucy dancing, all wild grace and thoughtless beauty, her golden hair twirling. The squeak of chalk on a blackboard, student's hands raised eagerly. The feel of sunlight between her fingers and cool steel in her palm, and the straight edge of a bullet flying. Edmund with his horses, free and smiling. Edmund in the mornings, drowsy, his hand in hers. Edmund by her side as they ride off into the distance, sand and sky on her horizon. 

**Author's Note:**

> Let me know what you thought! Hope you enjoyed.


End file.
